Polymeric coatings are used to coat and protect a variety of surfaces in applications including paints, wood finishing, printing, photography, floor care products, waxes, polishes, etc. A polymer composition can be in the form of one or more solid polymer ingredients dispersed or suspended in a liquid medium, e.g., water, organic solvent, and combinations or blends of organic solvent with water. The polymer composition can be combined with other functional ingredients such as surfactants, catalysts, and gloss control agents to produce useful derivative compositions such as, e.g., a finish composition. A polymer composition or finish composition can be applied to a surface and allowed to dry or cure, to produce a protective coating.
Relative gloss of a dried or cured finish composition can be a very important property of certain compositions, particularly paints, floor care products, coatings used in printing and photography, wood finishes, and the like. Different levels of sheen (from glossy to matte) are necessary for a variety of applications and tastes. These levels range from high gloss, semi-gloss, eggshell, flat, matte, and the like.
Conventional measures for reducing gloss include adding any of various gloss control (reducing) agents to a polymeric coating composition. Examples include solid particulate materials such as silica, matte-producing wax emulsions, and high-acid functional polymer thickeners.
Polymeric floor care products, sometimes referred to as polish, finish, or wax, often are used to protect and enhance appearances of floors made of wood, synthetic resins, concrete, marble, terrazzo, stone, and the like. These products require periodic application of liquid polymeric floor care compositions, which dry to a protective finish. The protective finish can exhibit properties such as resistance to scratching and scuffing, resistance to marking from shoes, and the like, along with a selected sheen (high gloss, gloss, flat, matte, etc.). The floor care composition is applied to a floor surface and allowed to form a film (coalesce) as the carrying solvent evaporates. Film formation desirably can occur at room temperature and the resulting film desirably can be burnished or removed if damaged or compromised.
In floor polish compositions, one or more film-forming polymers are dissolved, dispersed, or suspended in a liquid medium. Although organic solvents can be used, water is the liquid medium of choice in many currently commercial polymer compositions. Because many polymers are insoluble in water, aqueous floor polish compositions also require surfactant to keep the polymer particles dispersed or suspended in the continuous aqueous phase. Other common ingredients include one or more crosslinking agents (preferably one that can reversibly crosslink the polymer chains from which the protective film is formed), one or more materials designed to aid in the flow, wetting, or leveling of the composition across the floor surface, one or more coalescents, plasticizers, and waxes.
Many different types of polymers have been used to make floor polish compositions. Commercial polishes typically include styrene-acrylic interpolymers, i.e., polymers that include mer derived from one or more acrylic-type monomers and styrene mer. Floor polishes based on a styrene-butadiene interpolymers recently have become available.
That which remains desirable is a gloss reducing agent that can be used with a variety of polymers in finish compositions.